Dear Readers,
It's been awhile. Is anyone still reading along with me on my journey? ....Anyone?
Well, to finish my previous installment, let me start with clubs.
For clubs, there's really not all that much to say. I originally started attending meetings for Campus Kitchens, a charity club here at St. Lawrence serves free meals for anyone to come and eat. This year, the began implementing a new system where they gave everyone a cold meal to take home with them, giving them a meal they could heat at any time instead of eating it the next night here at St. Lawrence as a second meal. They also do gleeing, where they take produce from the fields that the Farmers don't have time to collect and use them so that they don't just sit in the fields and rot. Campus Kitchens is also now working with farmers at the Farmers' Market: at the end of every market-week, members from Campus Kitchens to go the market and await for the farmers to finish selling for the week. The farmers then give the members from Campus Kitchens the left over fruits and vegetables that they are willing to donate to the charity.
However, due to work and my life getting pretty busy, I wasn't able to attend the meetings for the past month. When finally able to last week, they didn't hold a meeting. Go figure, right? Ah well, hopefully next week! I would have this week, but I covered a shift that a workmate couldn't work due to leaving for home for our mid-semester break.
Speaking of work, have I ever mentioned that I work in ODY Library at St. Lawrence? Well, I do! And hey, if I already mentioned it? You get to hear it again, along with see a ton of pictures ;)
(see facebook album below)
Downstairs is the Periodicals department. Here, we house current journals, old journals (either in binding or in microfilm), microfiche, newspapers (both in print and in microfilm), as well Government Documents and Canadian Documents. Along with our collection, however, there is also many group study rooms, a Cafe room (with a few computers), a bunch of computers, desks with plugs in them so that you can plug in your laptops, scanners/copiers/printers, couches, and study carrels that people can reserve for their own personal use.
Here, I work the Help Desk. My job is to help patrons research their topics, help them find the journals or documents they are in search of, lend out laptops, put journals away, date-stamp and put away the currents, and simply help in any way that I can.
........
Okay, so that's what I'm SUPPOSED to do. BUT! I barely do anything.
Now, I work anywhere between 10-15hrs a week and get paid around $8.10 an hour. And don't get me wrong, I do actually work.... sometimes. However, not many people come to the desk unless they want a stapler, the hole-punch, etc. I give out laptops sometimes, and help on occasion, but mainly I just get paid to sit around and watch movies. Like tonight for example! The night before mid-semester break and the library is SO DEAD!!! I've been here since 6:30 and have watched a 3 hr movie as well as a 2hr movie.
However, I did have SOME action however! A guy came to the desk and checked out books recently and we had a nice little chat. He was pretty cute too ;)
In all honesty I LOVE my job. It's really the best place to work. My co-workers and bosses are so kind and are really helpful; I honestly couldn't imagine working anywhere else. For as long as I'm at SLU, I'll be working here. :)
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Now, the trip to Wal-Mart with Raven and Will was weeks ago. Not much happened, but hey - at least it was fun! Can't remember all of what happened now - but basically we shopped, got Will a broom for Quidditch here are SLU (yes, we have a Quidditch team. Amazing right?? :D), and Raven and I stalked Will in the Electronics section and called out "STANDISH!" randomly from behind shelves, and we called "STANDISH!" when we saw him wayyyy away in the store in order to get his attention so he could find us in the food section once he was done with his shopping. It was pretty fun :)
Until next time Readers!
I'm off for break!
-Megan
P/S:: Because there are too many pictures to place individually within the blog, here is a link to all of the photos I took walking around campus :)
Facebook Album
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
FYP Cup, Classes, Clubs, Work, and Trips to Walmart PART 1
Dear Readers,
Dang it's been a long time since I've blogged. Sorry for the delay!! It's been one hell of a busy month so far. Let's start with FYP Cup.
FYP Cup is where all of the First Year Programs compete against each other to create the best banner, be the most creative with the Alma Matter, and over all be the best FYP at St. Lawrence. Throughout the year we earn points, compete in sports, etc. The easiest way to think of FYP Cup is in terms of Harry Potter: In the Harry Potter novels the have the House Cup, a competition of earning points between the four houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At St. Lawrence, we've taken that concept and created a First Year Festival to kick off the First Year Cup. However, instead of there only being four houses, there are 15+ Colleges in the First Year - each having a program of their own; mine being Curtin College, which belonged to the Representations of Marriage and Family program.
In preparation for this, each college was given a bed-sheet to create their banner, a College Color, and T-Shirts. My college's color was an off-white so we decided to tie-dye them to make them prettier. I have to say, mine was the absolute best :P
Not bad for the first time ever tie-dying in my life neh?
Gaines College, of course, had the most amazing Alma Matter. They sang it to Feel Good Inc.
Feel Good Inc - Gorillaz
In place of the line "Feel Good" - they said "Gainesters"
And, obviously, in place of the Feel Good Inc. lyrics - they sang the Alma Matter. It was very creative, very well rehearsed, and it was nicely done. They even had live instruments!
For our Alma Matter - we came up with it in about 5 minutes and sang to "Bye, Bye, Bye" by N*Sync, with Ben as our lead singer. It wasn't great, it was messy, but it was amazing and hilarious at the same time.
Bye,Bye,Bye - N*Sync
Banner-wise, ours was rather... bland. Other FYPs had painted Uncle Sam, Abraham Lincoln with abs, etc.
Ours was a bunch of paint splatters with silvery black writing on it. I have to say though, our banner was ingenious for coming up with it in about 10 minutes and hardly anybody in our FYP working on it ;)
When the Festival ended, before the FYP members were sent off to their respective games (which they had signed up for earlier in the week), each college was called by Dr. Cathy Crosby-Currie, the Assistant Dean of the First Year Program and also one my FYP's Adviser (the other being Dr. Sarah Gates). When the college is asked if they are present, they are expected to be as loud as they possibly can and make as much noise as possible. For our College, we counted to three and said "We love you Cathy!!" then freaked out like there was no tomorow.
All three aforementioned festival tasks were all judged and gave us FYP Points. We weren't too shabby in our placement, but we weren't in Top 3 unfortunately. But hey, we made Top 10!! Not bad for a college who had no interest in the FYP Cup and who threw it together the night before and morning of, I think.
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Well, FYP Cup over and done with, classes began!
For my very first semester here at St. Lawrence, I started out taking 4.5 units consisting of FYP Plenary, FYP Seminar, Elementary Japanese, Elementary Japanese Lab, Philosophy East and West, Psychology 101, Psychology 101 Lab.
The first week went pretty well - I learned Hirigana in Japanese, realized just how much I hated Philosophy, had an amazing experience with Psychology, and started to really get into my FYP.
The second week? Not so great. Japanese was moving far to fast and was being treated like an Intermediate level course because of all the experience in the class: students with previous knowledge of the language, Asian students already familiar with Asian languages (just not Japanese), and students who studied a year in Japan in high school through a foreign exchange program.
This, to me, was highly unfair for the few of us who had NO EXPERIENCE with neither the language nor the writing system and it was HIGHLY UNREALISTIC to expect us to learn 100+ Hirigana in 4 days. Not to mention learn a completely new system of writing less than 14 days later.
Sooo - after talking with Cathy about my issues with the course and after thinking about it for a great while, I decided to drop the course. Thankfully this wasn't a problem and Cathy was more than happy to get it arranged for me to do so, fully understanding the circumstances.
With Japanese off my shoulders, I am now able to focus on my other studies and fully give my attention to them, having been unable to prior to dropping the course because it was so much work trying to keep up with the class and catch up.
Caution to all:: When learning a language, if the class starts out fast? IT'S GOING TO STAY FAST!! Make sure you talk with the Professor or find a slower paced course because if you're taking more than that one course, you're going to have a great deal of trouble trying to keep up with all of your courses.
Now that I've had my little tangent about Japanese, let's move on to Philosophy! LOL Philosophy, however, is another tangent of mine. Well, it has been, anyway.
To begin the year, we learned a Buddhist bow. It's not too bad, just a bit strange. However, seeing as how we started the year off with a Buddhist tradition, one would think that we would be learning about some Buddhist Philosopher, right?
WRONG!!
We started learning about a French Philosopher named Rene Descartes. Ugh. Let me just say, he is the worst Philosopher I've ever read, and I've only read a few. Not only does he talk in circles and prove his original statements with that aforementioned original statement (just reworded), but his logic is so twisted and crazy you'd go insane just by reading it!!
SO! Once that horribly written book was over, nearly our entire class jumped for joy! Only problem was, we had a paper to write on his theories :(
I wasn't happy to say the least :P
Buuuut - I made it through! I don't think I did too terribly on it.
Now, from what you've just read, you'd think I absolutely HATED my classes, right?
Well, you'd be 90% right. I love my FYP, but I hate the pace we're going in it. I think I'd enjoy it more if we weren't analyzing our own families / were reading the novels a bit slower. Being assigned 30-40 pages in 1 book while being assigned 10 chapters in another at the exact same time is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Some nights it's close to 200 pages I have to read. My brain and eyes are NOT thanking them right now. However, I absolutely adore the professors and enjoy the class aside from the aforementioned point.
As for Psychology, words can't describe how much I love the class. Dr. Ronald Sigmundi is the most hilarious guy I've ever met; he honestly reminds me of a mix between my grandfather and Mr. Cooper. Sigmundi is witty; one of those old coots you just love listening to because they say what they want without worrying about what people might think; and he tells these stories that relate to our discussion / answer our questions that are just absolutely hysterical to listen to. The best part is, 99% of these stories are about his wife!!
My Psychology Lab, with Mela Lawson, isn't too bad - but not my favorite either. For the first experiment, it was pretty tame other than the calculations being so confusing on the formula. The second experiment, unfortunately, wanted to make me cry. Not only did we take a tour of the lab-rats' home in the bottom of the science building and see all of the different animals kept there for psychology testing as well, but our experiment consisted of watching 2 lab-mice in a cake container and observing their behaviors. Now, it wasn't bad enough that I'm absolutely PETRIFIED of mice, but to top it off the mice we had in the container learned that if they JUMPED they could almost read the OPENING OF THE CONTAINER!!
All I have to say is thank God we had a tall container or else those mice would be out of the containers and into our laps! As you can imagine, I was about 3 feet away from the container at all times. Plus, once the mice nearly got out and knocked the container over? I went hysterical 'cause it was right at me that it was jumping and the container FINALLY got moved to another desk. I could actually breathe once THAT happened. It was not a happy camper when Ms. Lawson kept the mice in the containers instead of putting them back in their "homes" while she finished her lecture in class.
To be continued........
Dang it's been a long time since I've blogged. Sorry for the delay!! It's been one hell of a busy month so far. Let's start with FYP Cup.
FYP Cup is where all of the First Year Programs compete against each other to create the best banner, be the most creative with the Alma Matter, and over all be the best FYP at St. Lawrence. Throughout the year we earn points, compete in sports, etc. The easiest way to think of FYP Cup is in terms of Harry Potter: In the Harry Potter novels the have the House Cup, a competition of earning points between the four houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. At St. Lawrence, we've taken that concept and created a First Year Festival to kick off the First Year Cup. However, instead of there only being four houses, there are 15+ Colleges in the First Year - each having a program of their own; mine being Curtin College, which belonged to the Representations of Marriage and Family program.
In preparation for this, each college was given a bed-sheet to create their banner, a College Color, and T-Shirts. My college's color was an off-white so we decided to tie-dye them to make them prettier. I have to say, mine was the absolute best :P
Not bad for the first time ever tie-dying in my life neh?
Gaines College, of course, had the most amazing Alma Matter. They sang it to Feel Good Inc.
Feel Good Inc - Gorillaz
In place of the line "Feel Good" - they said "Gainesters"
And, obviously, in place of the Feel Good Inc. lyrics - they sang the Alma Matter. It was very creative, very well rehearsed, and it was nicely done. They even had live instruments!
For our Alma Matter - we came up with it in about 5 minutes and sang to "Bye, Bye, Bye" by N*Sync, with Ben as our lead singer. It wasn't great, it was messy, but it was amazing and hilarious at the same time.
Bye,Bye,Bye - N*Sync
Banner-wise, ours was rather... bland. Other FYPs had painted Uncle Sam, Abraham Lincoln with abs, etc.
Ours was a bunch of paint splatters with silvery black writing on it. I have to say though, our banner was ingenious for coming up with it in about 10 minutes and hardly anybody in our FYP working on it ;)
When the Festival ended, before the FYP members were sent off to their respective games (which they had signed up for earlier in the week), each college was called by Dr. Cathy Crosby-Currie, the Assistant Dean of the First Year Program and also one my FYP's Adviser (the other being Dr. Sarah Gates). When the college is asked if they are present, they are expected to be as loud as they possibly can and make as much noise as possible. For our College, we counted to three and said "We love you Cathy!!" then freaked out like there was no tomorow.
All three aforementioned festival tasks were all judged and gave us FYP Points. We weren't too shabby in our placement, but we weren't in Top 3 unfortunately. But hey, we made Top 10!! Not bad for a college who had no interest in the FYP Cup and who threw it together the night before and morning of, I think.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, FYP Cup over and done with, classes began!
For my very first semester here at St. Lawrence, I started out taking 4.5 units consisting of FYP Plenary, FYP Seminar, Elementary Japanese, Elementary Japanese Lab, Philosophy East and West, Psychology 101, Psychology 101 Lab.
The first week went pretty well - I learned Hirigana in Japanese, realized just how much I hated Philosophy, had an amazing experience with Psychology, and started to really get into my FYP.
The second week? Not so great. Japanese was moving far to fast and was being treated like an Intermediate level course because of all the experience in the class: students with previous knowledge of the language, Asian students already familiar with Asian languages (just not Japanese), and students who studied a year in Japan in high school through a foreign exchange program.
This, to me, was highly unfair for the few of us who had NO EXPERIENCE with neither the language nor the writing system and it was HIGHLY UNREALISTIC to expect us to learn 100+ Hirigana in 4 days. Not to mention learn a completely new system of writing less than 14 days later.
Sooo - after talking with Cathy about my issues with the course and after thinking about it for a great while, I decided to drop the course. Thankfully this wasn't a problem and Cathy was more than happy to get it arranged for me to do so, fully understanding the circumstances.
With Japanese off my shoulders, I am now able to focus on my other studies and fully give my attention to them, having been unable to prior to dropping the course because it was so much work trying to keep up with the class and catch up.
Caution to all:: When learning a language, if the class starts out fast? IT'S GOING TO STAY FAST!! Make sure you talk with the Professor or find a slower paced course because if you're taking more than that one course, you're going to have a great deal of trouble trying to keep up with all of your courses.
Now that I've had my little tangent about Japanese, let's move on to Philosophy! LOL Philosophy, however, is another tangent of mine. Well, it has been, anyway.
To begin the year, we learned a Buddhist bow. It's not too bad, just a bit strange. However, seeing as how we started the year off with a Buddhist tradition, one would think that we would be learning about some Buddhist Philosopher, right?
WRONG!!
We started learning about a French Philosopher named Rene Descartes. Ugh. Let me just say, he is the worst Philosopher I've ever read, and I've only read a few. Not only does he talk in circles and prove his original statements with that aforementioned original statement (just reworded), but his logic is so twisted and crazy you'd go insane just by reading it!!
SO! Once that horribly written book was over, nearly our entire class jumped for joy! Only problem was, we had a paper to write on his theories :(
I wasn't happy to say the least :P
Buuuut - I made it through! I don't think I did too terribly on it.
Now, from what you've just read, you'd think I absolutely HATED my classes, right?
Well, you'd be 90% right. I love my FYP, but I hate the pace we're going in it. I think I'd enjoy it more if we weren't analyzing our own families / were reading the novels a bit slower. Being assigned 30-40 pages in 1 book while being assigned 10 chapters in another at the exact same time is a bit ridiculous in my opinion. Some nights it's close to 200 pages I have to read. My brain and eyes are NOT thanking them right now. However, I absolutely adore the professors and enjoy the class aside from the aforementioned point.
As for Psychology, words can't describe how much I love the class. Dr. Ronald Sigmundi is the most hilarious guy I've ever met; he honestly reminds me of a mix between my grandfather and Mr. Cooper. Sigmundi is witty; one of those old coots you just love listening to because they say what they want without worrying about what people might think; and he tells these stories that relate to our discussion / answer our questions that are just absolutely hysterical to listen to. The best part is, 99% of these stories are about his wife!!
My Psychology Lab, with Mela Lawson, isn't too bad - but not my favorite either. For the first experiment, it was pretty tame other than the calculations being so confusing on the formula. The second experiment, unfortunately, wanted to make me cry. Not only did we take a tour of the lab-rats' home in the bottom of the science building and see all of the different animals kept there for psychology testing as well, but our experiment consisted of watching 2 lab-mice in a cake container and observing their behaviors. Now, it wasn't bad enough that I'm absolutely PETRIFIED of mice, but to top it off the mice we had in the container learned that if they JUMPED they could almost read the OPENING OF THE CONTAINER!!
All I have to say is thank God we had a tall container or else those mice would be out of the containers and into our laps! As you can imagine, I was about 3 feet away from the container at all times. Plus, once the mice nearly got out and knocked the container over? I went hysterical 'cause it was right at me that it was jumping and the container FINALLY got moved to another desk. I could actually breathe once THAT happened. It was not a happy camper when Ms. Lawson kept the mice in the containers instead of putting them back in their "homes" while she finished her lecture in class.
To be continued........
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Moving In and Orientation Week
Good evening followers,
My name is Megan Royce. I was born in Gouveneur, NY, grew up in Lisbon, NY, and graduated from Lisbon Central School on June 25, 2010.
To celebrate our Graduation, Mrs. Putney baked a train cake as was custom for our every visit to the Putney Farm growing up. Each cake was decorated in candies, pretzels of all sorts, and were adorned with small cards with our names written on them. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to keep our cakes but the entire train as a whole was served to everyone at the reception. None of the seniors were happy about this.
Over the summer, not much happened. However, on August 9th I began work at ODY Library in Periodicals with a salary of $7.45 an hour. After 2 weeks of training, I think I've got the basics down. I'm struggling a little with Gov. Docs. and Can. Docs. because I've only spent a couple days learning about it. I hope to learn more in the coming years at St. Lawrence University and am very much excited to work in a library once again.
When August 22nd came around, it was official moving-in day at St. Lawrence and I could finally live in my dorm room: Rebert Hall South, Room 129. I finished moving in, finished packing, and my room has officially went from drab::
to fab::
outside my door:
Orientation at St. Lawrence University lasts for 3 days. It is intense back to back sessions of ice-breakers, tours, first FYP classes, dinners, meetings, lunches, academic planning meetings with advisers, picking your final classes for the year, and stressing when you can't get into any of the ones you've been dying to get into since you read about them online. Among all of this, you also listen to lectures on Campus Safety, Alcohol Safety, etc. - all in hopes of getting you ready to safely start your term and be responsible adults about your choices here at St. Lawrence.
Day 1. You meet your FYP, your class in general, your CAs (known as RAs in other colleges), and your Orientation Leaders, who are with you throughout Orientation, guide you through your first steps into college, and help you assimilate into the college life and get to know the members of your FYP.
While getting to know your fellow FYP-mates, you do what are called "ice-breakers" - name games that tell about you, where you're from, and fun things about yourself so that the others can get to know you. Among this, is the ice-breaker called "I'm cool and you're cool if....". In this game, you remove one pair of shoes from the circle and everyone takes their shoes off. One person is always in the middle. It's honestly a mix between "Red Rover, Red Rover" and "Duck, Duck, GOOSE!". If you're what the "cool" thing is, then you have to run to another pair of shoes. Now mind you, if you had flip-flops or flats on without socks? YOU RAN IN YOUR BARE FEET. Talk about unsanitary. I sanitized my feet and my shoes afterward when I got back to my room that night. I was completely appalled. I mean, do these people not think of consequences when they create these games? It's not like we were on the grass, we were on an indoor track course. Fungus, Athlete's Foot, and who knows what else could be contracted from the floors. It's unhealthy, unsafe, and completely repulsive. Let's just say I barely moved for that entire game.
In coming to St. Lawrence, I wasn't expecting such a vast change in living. At home, I had my lights, my satellite dish, my large room, and the only noises being the fan in the living room and my brother playing Call of Duty in the next room over. Now, I've heard so much racket my head wants to spin. Let's just say, Night 1 at St. Lawrence was wretched to say the least. The only interesting part about Night 1 was that the Seniors and Juniors streaked across the Quad after we all gathered around it. It was.... Interesting to say the least. Especially since our Orientation Leader Joe was one of the streaking Seniors, backpack on and all.
Day 2. Even more intense than Day 1.
Right off the bat we had our first FYP class of the year to introduce us to our FYP Advisers. It was here I met Cathy Crosby-Currie and Sarah Gates. After, I went to the Academic Advising Panel for Studying Abroad, I free until 4:45pm when I had my Academic Planning Meeting with my Adviser Cathy. Until that point, I took a nap in my dorm instead of participating in the "ice-breaker games" between all of the FYPs due to having work directly after my advising meeting.
After dinner, we went back to our FYP room with our OLs Allysa and Joe, along with our CA Molly, and had conversations about the social life at St. Lawrence; namely alcohol and parties. We were given situations and then talked about possible solutions, possible preventions, and over all the rules, regulations, and policies here at St. Lawrence. It was basic common sense, but it was situations that people at parties face all of the time and never really think about.
After that was over, we could check and see if we got the courses we requested during our advising meetings with our advisers. My hopes were to get Elementary Japanese with Lab and Applied Statistics. The math course is required for my Psychology major and I wanted to get it out of the way asap. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to. Therefore, I put in for Philosophy East and West during the second batch of advising meetings. I wasn't too sure on it, but Cathy said it was pretty easy, made for first year students with the assumption that they have no philosophy experience, and thought it might be a nice alternative course seeing as how I'm studying the Japanese language as well and we study a Japanese philosopher during the philosophy course.
After this, I went home for the night. Thank goodness I did.
Day 3. Refreshed from my night at home, I'm ready to take on Day 3 at St. Lawrence. I'm well rested, I'm in a happier mood, and I'm trying to feel better about the coming day.
To my happy surprise, Day 3 was the best day of all. I made new friends, I actually had fun, we tie-dyed our FYP shirts, and over all it was one of the best days I've had in a very long time. Over the course of the day, I found out that the previous night people were ringing our SLU Cowbell gifts up and down the halls for all hours of the night. No one told them to stop because I wasn't there and no one other than me stood up I guess. Now, that may not be true, but that's simply what I understand from snippets of conversation I heard while walking from lecture to lecture.
Over the course of the day, I instantly became amazing friends with Raven Wilson. We ran errands together, we had lunch at the cafe in the Student Center together, and we were basically stuck like glue all day and most of the night. She even got me to try new foods!
You know that chocolate-hazelnut spread that's always advertised? Nutella? Well, I always wrote it off because of the hazelnut in it. IT DOESN'T TASTE LIKE HAZELNUT!! IT TASTES ONLY LIKE CHOCOLATE!! It's honestly amazingggg. If you're nervous to try it because of the hazelnut? TRY IT! You'll love it if you love chocolate. :)
Along with the Nutella, she had me try Tofu Miso Soup. Basically tofu chunks and kelp (which is a type of seaweed for those who don't know). It was beyond disgusting. But I tried it at least!! She only told me the green stuff floating around (which I thought was seasoning) was kelp AFTER I ate some of it. EW!!
Holding the bowl is Raven::
Day 3, aside from the amazing parts, was full of lectures on safety in general, health safety, alcohol safety, and fire safety. It was all pretty self explanatory, but Dr. Thacker honestly reminded me of my grandfather as I listened to him talk about things on campus we needed to know to make it through our 4 years safely and proudly. He truly was a mix of my grandfather and perhaps a small liking to my physical science teacher Mr. Cooper at Lisbon Central. He was funny, blunt, honest, and not afraid to speak his mind; all qualities I see in my grandfather, as well as in Mr. Cooper.
After the lectures, we took a small classroom tour where we could head out as soon as we got the buildings we needed to find on the tour.
Later that evening we had a Dessert Reception at President Foxx's house. We had some strawberries, some cookies, some cakes, some punch, etc. and mingled with the other FYP that was there at that time. We shook President Foxx's hand, as well as the hand of his wife, and briefly chatted with President Foxx.
I mainly just stuck with the few people I was hanging with and didn't mingle much with the other FYP. I'm not that much for stranger-socialization and neither was the small group I hung out with.
At 7pm, right after the Dessert Reception, we went to Guilick Theater for a comedy called Can I Kiss You?
This was an amazing thing to watch. It was fun, it was informative, it was interactive, and the the man is simply a genius and amazing. I couldn't believe how into it I got. It made sense, it touched a lot of people, and it was just one of those things you never forget. I bought his book and got it signed while I was there. It was by far one of the greatest nights of my college life so far.
After Can I Kiss You?, Orientation Week was FINALLY over. Classes today, but I'll save that for another post.
-Megan
My name is Megan Royce. I was born in Gouveneur, NY, grew up in Lisbon, NY, and graduated from Lisbon Central School on June 25, 2010.
To celebrate our Graduation, Mrs. Putney baked a train cake as was custom for our every visit to the Putney Farm growing up. Each cake was decorated in candies, pretzels of all sorts, and were adorned with small cards with our names written on them. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to keep our cakes but the entire train as a whole was served to everyone at the reception. None of the seniors were happy about this.
Over the summer, not much happened. However, on August 9th I began work at ODY Library in Periodicals with a salary of $7.45 an hour. After 2 weeks of training, I think I've got the basics down. I'm struggling a little with Gov. Docs. and Can. Docs. because I've only spent a couple days learning about it. I hope to learn more in the coming years at St. Lawrence University and am very much excited to work in a library once again.
When August 22nd came around, it was official moving-in day at St. Lawrence and I could finally live in my dorm room: Rebert Hall South, Room 129. I finished moving in, finished packing, and my room has officially went from drab::
to fab::
outside my door:
Orientation at St. Lawrence University lasts for 3 days. It is intense back to back sessions of ice-breakers, tours, first FYP classes, dinners, meetings, lunches, academic planning meetings with advisers, picking your final classes for the year, and stressing when you can't get into any of the ones you've been dying to get into since you read about them online. Among all of this, you also listen to lectures on Campus Safety, Alcohol Safety, etc. - all in hopes of getting you ready to safely start your term and be responsible adults about your choices here at St. Lawrence.
Day 1. You meet your FYP, your class in general, your CAs (known as RAs in other colleges), and your Orientation Leaders, who are with you throughout Orientation, guide you through your first steps into college, and help you assimilate into the college life and get to know the members of your FYP.
While getting to know your fellow FYP-mates, you do what are called "ice-breakers" - name games that tell about you, where you're from, and fun things about yourself so that the others can get to know you. Among this, is the ice-breaker called "I'm cool and you're cool if....". In this game, you remove one pair of shoes from the circle and everyone takes their shoes off. One person is always in the middle. It's honestly a mix between "Red Rover, Red Rover" and "Duck, Duck, GOOSE!". If you're what the "cool" thing is, then you have to run to another pair of shoes. Now mind you, if you had flip-flops or flats on without socks? YOU RAN IN YOUR BARE FEET. Talk about unsanitary. I sanitized my feet and my shoes afterward when I got back to my room that night. I was completely appalled. I mean, do these people not think of consequences when they create these games? It's not like we were on the grass, we were on an indoor track course. Fungus, Athlete's Foot, and who knows what else could be contracted from the floors. It's unhealthy, unsafe, and completely repulsive. Let's just say I barely moved for that entire game.
In coming to St. Lawrence, I wasn't expecting such a vast change in living. At home, I had my lights, my satellite dish, my large room, and the only noises being the fan in the living room and my brother playing Call of Duty in the next room over. Now, I've heard so much racket my head wants to spin. Let's just say, Night 1 at St. Lawrence was wretched to say the least. The only interesting part about Night 1 was that the Seniors and Juniors streaked across the Quad after we all gathered around it. It was.... Interesting to say the least. Especially since our Orientation Leader Joe was one of the streaking Seniors, backpack on and all.
Day 2. Even more intense than Day 1.
Right off the bat we had our first FYP class of the year to introduce us to our FYP Advisers. It was here I met Cathy Crosby-Currie and Sarah Gates. After, I went to the Academic Advising Panel for Studying Abroad, I free until 4:45pm when I had my Academic Planning Meeting with my Adviser Cathy. Until that point, I took a nap in my dorm instead of participating in the "ice-breaker games" between all of the FYPs due to having work directly after my advising meeting.
After dinner, we went back to our FYP room with our OLs Allysa and Joe, along with our CA Molly, and had conversations about the social life at St. Lawrence; namely alcohol and parties. We were given situations and then talked about possible solutions, possible preventions, and over all the rules, regulations, and policies here at St. Lawrence. It was basic common sense, but it was situations that people at parties face all of the time and never really think about.
After that was over, we could check and see if we got the courses we requested during our advising meetings with our advisers. My hopes were to get Elementary Japanese with Lab and Applied Statistics. The math course is required for my Psychology major and I wanted to get it out of the way asap. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to. Therefore, I put in for Philosophy East and West during the second batch of advising meetings. I wasn't too sure on it, but Cathy said it was pretty easy, made for first year students with the assumption that they have no philosophy experience, and thought it might be a nice alternative course seeing as how I'm studying the Japanese language as well and we study a Japanese philosopher during the philosophy course.
After this, I went home for the night. Thank goodness I did.
Day 3. Refreshed from my night at home, I'm ready to take on Day 3 at St. Lawrence. I'm well rested, I'm in a happier mood, and I'm trying to feel better about the coming day.
To my happy surprise, Day 3 was the best day of all. I made new friends, I actually had fun, we tie-dyed our FYP shirts, and over all it was one of the best days I've had in a very long time. Over the course of the day, I found out that the previous night people were ringing our SLU Cowbell gifts up and down the halls for all hours of the night. No one told them to stop because I wasn't there and no one other than me stood up I guess. Now, that may not be true, but that's simply what I understand from snippets of conversation I heard while walking from lecture to lecture.
Over the course of the day, I instantly became amazing friends with Raven Wilson. We ran errands together, we had lunch at the cafe in the Student Center together, and we were basically stuck like glue all day and most of the night. She even got me to try new foods!
You know that chocolate-hazelnut spread that's always advertised? Nutella? Well, I always wrote it off because of the hazelnut in it. IT DOESN'T TASTE LIKE HAZELNUT!! IT TASTES ONLY LIKE CHOCOLATE!! It's honestly amazingggg. If you're nervous to try it because of the hazelnut? TRY IT! You'll love it if you love chocolate. :)
Along with the Nutella, she had me try Tofu Miso Soup. Basically tofu chunks and kelp (which is a type of seaweed for those who don't know). It was beyond disgusting. But I tried it at least!! She only told me the green stuff floating around (which I thought was seasoning) was kelp AFTER I ate some of it. EW!!
Holding the bowl is Raven::
Day 3, aside from the amazing parts, was full of lectures on safety in general, health safety, alcohol safety, and fire safety. It was all pretty self explanatory, but Dr. Thacker honestly reminded me of my grandfather as I listened to him talk about things on campus we needed to know to make it through our 4 years safely and proudly. He truly was a mix of my grandfather and perhaps a small liking to my physical science teacher Mr. Cooper at Lisbon Central. He was funny, blunt, honest, and not afraid to speak his mind; all qualities I see in my grandfather, as well as in Mr. Cooper.
After the lectures, we took a small classroom tour where we could head out as soon as we got the buildings we needed to find on the tour.
Later that evening we had a Dessert Reception at President Foxx's house. We had some strawberries, some cookies, some cakes, some punch, etc. and mingled with the other FYP that was there at that time. We shook President Foxx's hand, as well as the hand of his wife, and briefly chatted with President Foxx.
I mainly just stuck with the few people I was hanging with and didn't mingle much with the other FYP. I'm not that much for stranger-socialization and neither was the small group I hung out with.
At 7pm, right after the Dessert Reception, we went to Guilick Theater for a comedy called Can I Kiss You?
This was an amazing thing to watch. It was fun, it was informative, it was interactive, and the the man is simply a genius and amazing. I couldn't believe how into it I got. It made sense, it touched a lot of people, and it was just one of those things you never forget. I bought his book and got it signed while I was there. It was by far one of the greatest nights of my college life so far.
After Can I Kiss You?, Orientation Week was FINALLY over. Classes today, but I'll save that for another post.
-Megan
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